Brazil posts budget deficit of more than $4.5 billion in May

SAO PAULO – Brazil’s Treasury Department says that last month Latin America’s biggest country posted a primary budget deficit of more than $4.5 billion, the largest such deficit for the month of May since 1997.

The deficit came to 15.5 billion reals ($4.84 billion) as tax revenue fell amid Brazil’s worst recession in decades.

Last month’s deficit was 91.9 per cent higher than the 8.1 billion real deficit posted in May 2015.

With May’s result, Brazil now has a five-month accumulated budget deficit of 23.8 billion reals compared to a surplus of 6.5 billion reals for the same period in 2015.